My name is Sarah Rose Guitian Nederlof (ES/NL), I am an interdisciplinary artist working and living in Rotterdam. Born and raised in Spain (1993) and having moved to The Netherlands (2012), I began exploring the differences and similarities between my two cultural backgrounds. Observing people’s behaviour and the, often overlooked, traces they leave behind in public space; served as an exercise for self-reflection and familiarisation. My work comes together in the form of spatial installations, where the different mediums I work with —photography, video, sound, text, sculpture and recently performance— complement each other. My practice revolves around themes such as material culture, garbology, bicultural identity and belongingness.
La Sobremesa - La Sobremesa is a research project in which Sarah Rose Guitian Nederlof centered on the habits around food culture. More specifically to investigate the differences and similarities between Dutch and Spanish culture. Instead of looking only at the gastronomy of food, Sarah shifts her attention focussing on the utensils that accompany them with a focus on the napkin. She wonders about the function of this disposable object and what we can learn about our relation to food, but also our habits shaped by culture. The tangible and material qualities of a napkin allow her to play with it from a sculptural point of view, capturing in its shape the interaction between user and object.
“Placing these thoughts on the napkin, researching and developing several outcomes, some even implying new collaborations. Do our hands remember how we used to fold a napkin without using one? What can a napkin tell about one’s culture, and how our cultural background has been influenced by our gestures? Can ordinary objects become culture carriers? My time in Breda, a city which was before unknown to me, has been very introspective. Spending a lot of time alone, wondering about the influences of space and how it is when you displace yourself purely because of work. What does this do to our sense of being, or our creative process?”
This project was financially supported by Stichting KLEIO, in collaboration with Stedelijk Museum Breda and Artist in Residence Witte Rook.
La Sobremesa - video stil, c-print, mat, 10x15cm each
An Unforeseen Encounter - A shift in my way of working appeared as a result of the pandemic. I started to work in a more intuitive way. This alteration brought new perspectives towards my relation with my collected objects, in specific with the plastic bag. What occurs between the shift of their initial function and the moment they lose it?
With this project, I attempt to create unusual ways in which the viewer experiences the plastic bag. The performative dialogue between my body and the plastic bag result in visually serene body-improvisations, an ode to revalue their mundane significance.
An Unforeseen Encounter - Mixed media installation, Full HD, 1080x1920px, duration 3:20
30x sculptures, natural self hardening clay, acrylic paint, 4x4,5x3cm
Exhibition view at Daily Practice, 2021
''From August 21 to September 26, Sarah Rose Guitian Nederlof (Madrid, 1993) will use Daily Practice as a studio and exhibition space. An Unforeseen Encounter examines and shows material and findings that Guitian Nederlof collected during her stay in AADK Blanca (Murcia, Spain) last spring. Her performative research focuses in particular on logoless colored plastic bags, which for her carry an ephemeral beauty, but are also on the verge of disappearing for important ecological reasons. An Unforeseen Encounter will consist of three short research periods that will lead to three public moments, in which Guitian Nederlof shows a Pasaje (Passage).''
Fotografie door Beeldsmits
An Unforeseen Encounter - Mixed media, close up installation at Daily Practice
The (in)visibility of the ordinary - 1:1 sculptures made out of plaster on gauze, arranged on a 2x3m sand rectangle
Exhibition view during Residency at AADK ,2021
''This series of sculptures arranged like a museum display or an archaeological excavation, are elements of contemporary daily life, destined, like so many others, to disappear.
Sarah Rose is an artist who often uses photography in her work, since this medium allows her to observe and capture details that usually go unnoticed. She now experiments with other means, but her attention continues to be on the little or the overlooked things. Not only does she try to capture time through these elements, but her process also involves a recognition of their forms and a dedication that pays homage to the invisible, emphasizing its aesthetic value and establishing non-hierarchical relationships with the objects that coexist along us.''
The Manifest of Remembrance - 1:1 sculptures made from plaster on gauze, photographs printed on photo paper and miniature air-dry-clay sculptures
Window installation at NEstudios during the exhibition Raamwerk, 2021
The Right Orange - Set of 5 cards, 15x10cm, two colour risograph print, munken pure cream 300gr
Edition of 18, 2020
By Your Side - 2017-present
c-print mat, 4x5,5cm, keychain
This project furthers my questioning of the dialectic between art and the everyday both in image and form. Overlooked situations are elevated to the level of art through image-making, before reinserting them into our daily life using a keychain as the images' carrier. By ‘always having one with me’, I extended my ability to come into contact with people that feel attracted- and purchase this artwork, taking it later back with them to various European countries, South Korea and the USA.
